Elizabeth, as she crossed the sidewalk and mounted the steps before the formidable carved doors, felt that here was the last hope of finding an earthly habitation.  If this failed her, then there was the desert, and starvation, and a long, long sleep.  But while the echo of the cell still sounded through the high-ceiled hall there came to her the words:  “Let not your heart be troubled....  In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you....  I will come again and receive you.”  How sweet that was!  Then, even if she died on the desert, there was a home prepared for her.  So much she had learned in Christian Endeavor meeting.

The stately butler let her in.  He eyed her questioningly at first, and said madam was not up yet; but Elizabeth told him she would wait.

“Is she sick?” asked Elizabeth with a strange constriction about her heart.

“O no, she is not up yet, miss,” said the kind old butler; “she never gets up before this.  You’re from Mrs. Sands, I suppose.”  Poor soul, for once his butler eyes had been mistaken.  He thought she was the little errand-girl from Madam Bailey’s modiste.

“No, I’m just Elizabeth,” said the girl, smiling.  She felt that this man, whoever he was, was not against her.  He was old, and he had a kind look.

He still thought she meant she was not the modiste, just her errand-girl.  Her quaint dress and the long braid down her back made her look like a child.

“I’ll tell her you’ve come.  Be seated,” said the butler, and gave her a chair in the dim hall just opposite the parlor door, where she had a glimpse of elegance such as she had never dreamed existed.  She tried to think how it must be to live in such a room and walk on velvet.  The carpet was deep and rich.  She did not know it was a rug nor that it was woven in some poor peasant’s home and then was brought here years afterward at a fabulous price.  She only knew it was beautiful in its silvery sheen with gleaming colors through it like jewels in the dew.

On through another open doorway she caught a glimpse of a painting on the wall.  It was a man as large as life, sitting in a chair; and the face and attitude were her father’s—­her father at his best.  She was fairly startled.  Who was it?  Could it be her father?  And how had they made this picture of him?  He must be changed in those twenty years he had been gone from home.

Then the butler came back, and before he could speak she pointed toward the picture.  “Who is it?” she asked.

“That, miss?  That’s Mr. John, Madam’s husband that’s dead a good many years now.  But I remember him well.”

“Could I look at it?  He is so much like my father.”  She walked rapidly over the ancient rug, unheeding its beauties, while the wondering butler followed a trifle anxiously.  This was unprecedented.  Mrs. Sands’s errand-girls usually knew their place.